It's double digits for Ayden this year! She has been looking forward to turning 10 and we had a big party with her friends to celebrate. But for our family celebration, she requested a mint chocolate chip cake. Double digits, double cakes, double the celebrations!
Ayden is definitely turning into a pre-teen this year and wants more independence. She is very responsible, so this hasn't been much of a problem except for me letting go, but I am learning. She continues to be a great help, diligent in her homework, goal oriented, and trustworthy. She is a good friend, has a generous heart, and plays well with kids of any age, especially her little sisters. She takes special care of me too. She loves to talk before bed, read, creative write, organize, plan, draw, craft, cook, and orchestrate any kind of activity. She is becoming quite a good piano player, although not her favorite. She still plays soccer and is super fast. Ayden is a solid human being and I'm already dreading the day she leaves us. But until then, I enjoy her every day.
A majority of the fun of a party for Ayden is the planning and creating. She created and made these invitations all by herself.
She invited 10 girls: school, neighborhood, church, and cousins.
We're on a Harry Potter kick over here so we went all out with the decor as Ayden requested. My family was here visiting so it was great to have them join in the festivities. I made candles out of card stock and made drips with hot glue down the sides that Ayden painted white to look like melted wax. We then placed tea lights in them and hung them with fishing line. They turned out pretty cool. The light even flickered.
Pizza and butterbeer was the requested menu.
We grabbed a sheet from Goodwill and painted bricks with a sponge. Ayden did 4 rows until it "wasn't fun anymore" and I finished up the rest.
It created quite an ambiance and the girls loved the butterbeer mustache.
I made butterbeer cupcakes which were really delicious. Not too sweet but a great flavor. The cake had cream soda and toffee bits with a butterscotch whipped cream icing. So tasty.
Bags of Bertie Bott's beans and Slytherin Snakes were party favors to take home.
The activity for the party was an amazing scavenger hunt/mystery for the girls to solve all about the horcruxes. There were riddles they had to solve to get the next clue revealing Lupin (Patrick) hiding in the dark crawl space ready to scare them! Patrick headed up this project and it was exceptional.
The party was a success and it was a blast watching the girls have so much fun.
